Split - Old Version
by Chaoslover43
Summary: New Version Uploaded. This story is being rewritten under the same name. Nostalgia value only.
1. So, Shogi?

**Split**

**AN: This is a very different Naruto story than you are used to. I have taken liberties with this story and added many facets of the Naruto world that were either not in existence before or not explained to my satisfaction. With that said I think any Canon-cultists have left XD. Enjoy my first foray into the world of writing naruto-fic.**

**For those without brain cells...**

**Kyuubi speak.**

**'Kyuubi Think'**

"people speak"

'people Think'

**.oOo.**

Umino Iruka was having a good day. He had met some chuunin buddies and chatted before he had to go teach and now he had lunch-break plans. Then his would-be girlfriend had agreed to a date next saturday. It was a good day to be Umino Iruka.

Of course like usual Uzumaki Naruto showed up and shattered his peace of mind. Only today he wasn't doing it by breaking the sound barrier, which Iruka often had to remind him was there for a reason, this time however Naruto had done it by simply existing. Normally that would be impossible, except he wasn't wearing orange. Kiba had once joked that an orange-less Naruto was one of the hundred signs of the apocalypse. Instead of his one-of-a-kind, one-of-a-kind because no-one in their right mind would wear one, orange jumpsuit Naruto was wearing a pure black T-shirt tucked into black cargo pants with a belt holding those up.. If he had a vest and a forehead protector most people would mistake him for a chuunin or jounin. Naruto spoke up.

"Something wrong Iruka-sensei?"

'Dear god' Iruka yelled in his mind 'He's being quiet! Thats another of the hundred signs.' What he said caught up with Iruka and he freaked out internally again. 'Holy hell he's being _perceptive_! We're all going to die!' After a few minutes of mental relaxation exercises Iruka flagged Naruto down and managed to speak up.

"You okay there Naruto? You seem very different..." He trailed off.

"What, surprised because I'm not hurting peoples ears and wearing kill-me-please orange?"

Iruka was shocked by Naruto's bluntness but spoke up. "Quite frankly, yes."

Naruto seemed to lighten up a bit, "I was rather stupid before..."

Iruka was surprised, the look on Naruto's face was one of reminiscence as if he had changed over the course of many years. He prepared to call Naruto on it. "Any reason for the lack of stupid?" Was Iruka's carefully crafted response.

"Just thought I'd show off a bit for the Genin exams." He smiled. "Don't want to fail three times. Sort of an unlucky number."

Iruka stiffened. He'd forgotten about those for a while. He excused himself from Naruto and wandered off to consult with Mizuki, his instructional partner, as Mizuki liked to call himself, or in layman's terms assistant.

**.oOo.**

**(Naruto POV)**

With Iruka gone Naruto was left to pick a seat. Apparently Iruka was actually enforcing the no girls by Sasuke rule that had gone into effect when 8 girls started a fight over the seats next to him. So now it was either of the seats by the self-proclaimed 'avenger' or the floor. Naruto was about to gladly seat himself on the floor when the 'avenger' spoke up. "Sit by me" Sasuke was apparently keeping his reputation for brevity.

"I'm happy with the floor actually." He responded coldly.

Surprised by their crushes desire and Naruto's surprising new look and intelligence, but still looking to curry favor with Sasuke, Haruno Sakura and Yamanaka Ino spoke up at the same time from one seat away from the 'avenger' on either side. "Listen to Sasuke-kun!"

Naruto knew that annoying both girls AND the broody Uchiha would not be a good combo so he just sat himself to the left of the boy by Ino. He did not want to be accused of anything to do with his former-crush Sakura. Immediately the Uchiha went in for the kill. "Explain." he said jabbing at the clothes with his thumb.

Just as Naruto was about to flip off the Uchiha and give him a few anatomically impossible and socially unacceptable suggestions Iruka interrupted from the front of the amphitheater styled classroom. "Okay kids!" He replied overly cheerfully. "It's time for you to fail the genin test and get out of this stink hole we call a school!" Iruka was obviously fond of his place of employment. "We're going to call you up randomly and test your knowledge on the academy three, than we have a written, a weapon proficiency test and finally an all out spar."

Iruka stepped back and allowed Mizuki to call the first name. "Uchiha Sasuke come on down!" Mizuki was acting in a manner he obviously thought was cool but made him look like a game-show host.

As soon as the Uchiha was safely out of the room Naruto enacted the plan he had been trying to somehow make work for the last three years.

The boy got out of his seat slid over to the edge of the room. He then went up the steps and back three rows. He ended up just in front of Nara Shikamaru and set down a Shogi board. He grinned a grin he hadn't ever gotten to grin before and spoke up "Care for a game Nara-san?"

Never one to turn down Shogi or cloud watching the Nara quickly chose black and set up his pieces. Naruto accepted white and made the first move. As soon as he had set down the board he had retrieved from his bag a few people had gravitated around them to watch. By now there were about six people around them.

Eight people had taken the test and over fifteen minutes had gone by. The Nara had used his thinking pose once and Naruto hadn't stopped grinning that slightly creepy grin.

He was just about to take the Nara's Bishop when his name was called. "Nara Shikamaru!" a voice yelled from the testing room. Naruto finally stopped his grin to frown slightly at the interruption and wish the Nara luck. A few minutes later the Nara returned with an uncharacteristic smile on his face and sat down. Naruto immediately took the Bishop he had been waiting to take and started grinning again.

A further sixteen people had since went and thirty-five more minutes had gone by. There were only two people left waiting to go. Naruto and a faceless extra that nobody cares about. The genius Nara had used his thinking pose an unheard of eight times and Naruto was still grinning. Finally the faceless girl was called, finished her test and came back out. Naruto heard his name being called, made a move, and declared "Check."

The Nara glared at his back for the entire walk to the front and re-entered his pose.

Naruto entered the room and Iruka began to explain the test. "It's an extremely simple test to see if you've picked up the basic ninja techniques we've taught this year. You must produce at least three bunshin, an unwavering henge, and kawarimi with this potted plant here. In fact I'm extremely impressed you managed to fail this twice. It takes a seriously legendary retard to do that." It was obvious Iruka was fishing for a reaction so Naruto made sure to give him a megawatt grin and thank him.

Iruka looked disappointed with the lack of reaction and asked Naruto to just make the damn Bunshin.

Naruto's face gained a look of concentration and there was a noticeable but not visible swirl of chakra in the air. The two teachers looked unimpressed and Iruka stepped forward "Gonna give us some bunshin Naruto?" he asked.

His grin was firmly in place as he pointed to an area behind Iruka. The two examiners faces respectively rose and fell as they beheld the astonishing sight of fifty illusions in military formation saluting behind the examiners desk. Iruka managed to compose himself first. "Okay, well... You've created three or more clones," Naruto and Mizuki both snorted a little at this. "Congratulations! Now we'll move on to the henge technique." Iruka finished.

Naruto's grin increased to dangerous levels of brightness and a audible ping escaped his teeth as he cycled through the images of Iruka, the five kages, Mizuki, the entire class, and the fat old lady who sold him bad weapons without a sound, puff of smoke, or hand seal. This time the examiners were ready for something like that and Iruka managed to compose himself in seconds. "Well you've got that down." More snorts. "On to the kawarimi!"

Now the teachers turned examiners had smirks on their faces. Who could you impress with a kawarimi anyway? How could you possibly improve it? As always the words impossible, possibly and such didn't apply around Naruto as he threw a water balloon into the air. Iruka prepared to berate him for useless theatrics when he felt an immense chakra infuse him. Suddenly he was under the balloon and Naruto held the examiners clipboard.

Seconds later the balloon impacted Iruka's head and Naruto spoke up "If it's any consolation I apologize and thank you for the perfect scores." Apparently it wasn't any consolation and Iruka just angrily pointed at the door silently asking him to leave and glaring at his back as they walked out.

Iruka explained that the next test was the written one and made everyone return to their seats and in his own words "Shut the hell up because in the ninja world talking is cheating!"

He handed out the tests and the sounds of furious writing filled the room. Naruto finished twice as fast as anyone else except maybe Sakura and moved into position in front of Nara's desk. "I know you're done and just sleeping to cover your intelligence" He whispered. Speaking at three times the volume he said "If our teachers didn't suck so much you'd practically be a genius!" Naruto let the well deserved eraser hit him in the back of the head.

"You shut up and be glad you're being allowed to play shogi!" Iruka yelled. Reminded of the delicious shogi being held in front of him the Nara's head snapped back up and he began to play.

twenty-five minutes later the least intelligent kid in the class, faceless student extra #18 finished his test. At almost the exact same moment Naruto moved his rook and declared quite loudly but still below his usual decibel level "Checkmate!"

The genius Nara had known it was coming for well over 11 moves but still let his head fall and impact the desk. "Well fuck," Just about everyone was surprised the boy mustered up the energy to talk "that's troublesome." He finished. Everyone face faulted. Apparently their lazy classmate hadn't changed a bit.

Iruka noticed everyone hadn't touched a pencil is a few minutes and led everyone out side for the second to last test. He had them going three at a time on the fifteen human-shaped targets behind the school. Each target had three vital marks on them that you were supposed to hit. Each student was given ten kunai, five shuriken and five targets. They were then instructed to try to hit the vital points or at least get as close as possible to them.

Naruto had trooped out with Shikamaru and led him over to the best tree where they proceeded to begin anew. It took each student about 5 minutes to go and so around 42 minutes later after a new record fifteen poses the Nara declared checkmate with a megawatt grin on his face. Well it's a Nara who can't spare the face muscle energy so it's more like a slight upturning of the lips. Naruto just grinned and stood and walked to receive his weapons.

Standing twenty yards away from the targets Naruto jumped into the air, backflipped and flung six weapons. He repeated the process, front-flip on the second and no flip on the third, two more times with only three weapons leaving his hands on the last jump. He looked over at his targets. 14 'deaths' and one 'mortal wound' not bad for a days wound if you asked him. He laughed at his own horrible pun and retrieved and returned the fifteen weapons.

**.oOo.**

With the weapons testing over Iruka led the class to the sparring fields and began explaining rules. "Okay guys, this is serious, no weapons, no clan techniques if you have them. Just the academy three and your style of taijutsu. The point of the exercise is to land a blow on the examiner. Mizuki and I will be alternating so we can analyze the fights from two points of view. This one's alphabetical so wait your turn. Okay Aburame Shino! You're first!"

The fights varied in length based on skill and intelligence. With the clan heirs it was more like adapting to the no-clan-stuff rules. The fight length average was probably around 10 minutes. Clan heirs and talented people could do it in five and Sasuke held the record at two minutes thirty-four seconds. It helped him that he was already around mid genin level whereas most here barely deserved the title. With such a long waiting period the two managed to get in two more games in with each winning one.

They were about to start another when the Nara's name was called. Naruto wished him luck again and the Nara was back in six minutes three seconds. Naruto mumbled, "With the Nara style of counters to work in that jutsu of your family's and your great tactics you should have beaten the Uchiha." Shikamaru just laughed and said "With the troublesome performance your giving today you WILL beat the class 'avenger'."

They both laughed again and Naruto got black that time. Finally after another couple thinking poses Naruto was called up. Shikamaru was in a good mood because of his genius escape from Naruto's triple layered trap and bade him good luck and a quick victory.

Naruto stepped up to plate so to speak and Mizuki called for the fight to begin. Immediately with no sound or poof or any hand seals or anything at all really fifty clones appeared in a double layered circle around the academy teacher. Those who hadn't seen him do that in the testing room, namely everyone who wasn't Hyuuga Hinata the Byakugan wielder was shocked at the display of mastery over the jutsu when before he couldn't even produce one.

Immediately after creation the circle began to spin with all the Narutos running clockwise in perfect sync slowly moving toward Iruka. As they got closer to Iruka the circle was forced to shrink and widen until it was five Narutos wide. Once the circle was that wide each Naruto in the front circle jumped forward to kick or punch Iruka. Since he didn't know which was corporeal he was forced to dodge or block each attack. He looked incredible foolish blocking an intangible punch. Finally he detected a chakra reinforced kick among the rest of them and caught that one his grasp ignoring all the others which he now knew to be incorporeal. Lifting the ankle he was holding he spun in a complete circle three times until he'd gained sufficient momentum to fling the Naruto at a tree.

As he was smirking over his genius victory he felt himself being infused with chakra, "Oh-" He reappeared five feet from the tree at twenty miles per hour, "shit!" He managed to get out before he hit the tree back first and slid onto the ground. Once he had his wits about him he looked to Mizuki. He had his hands up with two fingers extended and the other eight curled back. Once he was sure Iruka had seen he shifted so that seven fingers were up and three were curled. "Good job Naruto! Twenty-seven seconds! You almost beat Itachi's old record! Except he just ran forward and punched three times... Kicked twice then socked the examiner in the stomach... Took twenty-five seconds but he looked damn cool doing it! He started so early he was actually in the class right behind me."

No one was paying attention though, which was good because the Uchiha would have gone insane at the mention of the name Itachi. Naruto just smiled and thanked him before settling himself back in front of the Nara boy. Fifteen rapid moves later Naruto pumped his fist in the air and yelled "Checkmate bitch!" It had been a particularly hard game...

The last fight had just finished and by the academy standards nobody had failed. There was a big deal about giving out headbands and for some reason Mizuki was looking dejected before finally perking up. The last headband had just been given out and Naruto was about to head home when Mizuki flagged him down. He made the universal 'come here and follow me' gesture and jumped onto the roof with two quick leaps. Naruto did the same but requiring three jumps instead of two. As soon as they had both landed Mizuki spoke up.

"You must have been hiding your true strength this whole time to have done so well on the tests but even though your score was an averaged 99.5%. You aren't the dead last but if you had done this good all year you'd be top rookie. Right now on a guess I'd put you as maybe twenty-second in a class of twenty-seven. That's not good at all. I know your skills though and the teachers have a special extra credit assignment they can give to boost a kids performance when they know they are capable of it. I want to give it to you Naruto."

The smile on his face and 'extra credit assignment' were so fake Naruto wanted to laugh and leave. Except Mizuki had gained his attention. Even if it was fake he was sure he could get something out of it. He became more sure of this every second of Mizuki's explanation.

"Okay Naruto. This is a search and retrieval mission. If it were given to an enemy ninja it would likely be an A or even S rank Mission. You are to steal the Forbidden Scroll from the Hokage tower and learn one of the powerful jutsu inside. If you can do that before the 'ANBU' catch up to you we'll bump you up to the top of the class."

The words Forbidden and jutsu had his heart pounding. He jumped up when Mizuki left and immediately hightailed it home to wait for dark.

**.oOo.**

A few hours later it had gotten dark out and he had donned a Hatake like face mask and hair covering. He crept silently through the tower and grabbed the Scroll from the hilariously basic security. He silently crept back out ant to the clearing Mizuki had informed him of.

He sat himself onto a fallen log and unfurled the scroll until he could see the first couple of techniques. The first was Kage Bunshin and it alone had his eyes widening to the point of saucers!

**Kage Bunshin - A-rank - Shadow Clone - Creates physical bodied clones and creates mental growth by relaying memories back to the user when the clone is dispelled for whatever reason. Each clone, for fighting purposes, has 75% of the users skill strength and speed and can be dispelled by any bruising forced blow. It is estimated at 100 CC's of chakra varying with the ninja's level of control per clone.**

This was so useful! He could use this to train all sorts of purely mental things! A glance down at the second technique left him rewording that statement.

**Kage Bunshin - S-rank - Shadow Clone - Creates physical bodied clones - Variation - By infusing greater chakra into each clone the clones gain the unique and not understood property of relaying muscle growth back to the user as if the user had himself performed everything that the clones did between creation and dispersion. The limit is five clones because any more does irreversible damage to the muscles and death. Estimated at 10,000 CC's of chakra. **

**Do not attempt until you are a VERY high level Jounin.**

That's helpful! Naruto immediately began training in the first kage bunshin. On his first try he managed five perfect bunshin. Deciding to test their mental relaying skills he was about to direct them to try to create more when before he could say anything they all did it themselves.

He was curious about that until he realized they were him and therefore had the same ideas at the same time and knew what he was thinking. They each had a better grasp after trying once and each managed ten clones. He dispelled them all and almost staggered when he received all the info at once. He was suddenly very glad he had only managed five clones any more and the information overload might've killed him! He was surprised it didn't warn against that or something. Now that he had the memories of performing the jutsu 5 times he tried it again. This time more than fifty popped into existence and he though suddenly 'The training benefits alone are amazing!'

He had each clone perform the jutsu and they could only do 10 before they were almost out of chakra. He had them dispel in groups of three and found that to be a tolerable mental overload threshold. With the mental feeling of having done the kage bunshin fifty-six times he felt ready to attempt to get rid of the training wheel type hand seals and try it with only the cross hand seal. It worked like a charm and again in front of him were fifty clones. Again he had them create ten clones each then dispel in groups of three. Having created 1100 clones he was really feeling the loss of about 110,000 CC's of chakra. That was almost 1/3 of his reserves! He decided to create 5 of the physical relaying clones and had them run around the clearing and then dispel. He now felt as if _he _had run around the clearing 5 times. Perfect.

Since the concept of physical relay clones and mental relay was about the same he had no trouble performing it and getting 5 clones. He felt he had a grasp of both and moved back to the scroll to see if there were any more gems among the bunch. He found,

**Kunai Kage Bunshin no jutsu - A-rank - Creates physical copies of weapons as they fly through the air. The same concept can apply to any other item(s) the user may have. such as scrolls or explosive notes.**

**'**That's perfect too! Now I can make a copy of this scroll and take it home...' He did so sealing the new scroll into a sealing scroll he'd bought to carry the Forbidden Scroll in. The same concept applied to the kunai kage bunshin skill as the kage bunshin and he had no trouble with it.

Then Iruka showed up...

**.oOo.**

**AN: Dun Dun Dun! Cliffhanger! Not really since we know what's gonna happen but it's still pretty cool! Not really? Fine... **

**If anyone's curious about CC's of chakra or 'training wheel hand seals' those are some of the things that make this not your usual fanfic XD. Here is my explanation on CC's that I keep in my notes.**

**CC - Abbreviation for Chakra Capacity - Is the unit of measurement for finding Chakra Capacity. It is the equivalent of the amount of chakra present in a rabbit. It was developed by the sage of the six paths when he first gained the ability to sense chakra. The rabbit was the first animal he saw after that and that is where CC came from. A basic human has roughly 10 CC's of chakra. That number gradually increases during shinobi education through chakra control exercises and using basic jutsu until a graduating genin has around 100 CC's of chakra. An average chuunin is expected to be able to beat 10 average genin and therefore is expected to have around 1,000 CC's of chakra. A jounin is supposed to be able to take the same number of chuunin or 100 genin and therefore has about 10,000 CC's of chakra. A kage similarly is expected to have around 100,000 CC's of chakra. **


	2. Fight in the forest

**AN: Those who read the first chapter... It may almost seem as if the summary was wrong considering nothing happened and Naruto just seems suddenly better than usual. But rest assured they Question Naruto's abilities this time! So the woods scene and the Sandaime+Iruka question Naruto scene is in here. Also you may get some more explanation on some of those things that make my Naruto story different. Also I made a tiny mistake last chapter. I said Mizuki arrived first then ended it. That was a typo. Iruka arrived first just like in the anime/manga.**

**.oOo.**

It was not a reassuring scene that Iruka walked in on. Naruto wasn't doing anything evil or kyuubi like or acting like a traitor to the village. He was just sitting there with the scroll. That was possibly worse than overt hostility. In the ninja world, that meant he was _waiting for someone_. 'Wait wait wait.' Iruka berated himself. 'This is _Naruto. _If anything he was tricked into doing this by some dumb-ass with illusions of grandeur power-wise'

"Hey Iruka-sensei!" Naruto yelled. He had decided that the best course of action was to blame everything on Mizuki because now he was positive this was either a set up or a traitor-in-action. There was no love lost between him and Konoha but his friends live there. Yes his FRIENDS live there. Not his 'precious people'. Stupid-Naruto called people his precious people. He was WAAAAY past that. So he'd stop the traitor. He kept up the Charade. "Am I top of the class now Iruka sensei?!"

'Yup. All thoughts confirmed' thought Iruka as Naruto proceeded to unknowingly deny any and all accusations of doing this himself for his own gain. He had to know what was going on though so he spoke up. "Um not to be blunt Naruto but what the hell are you talking about?"

Naruto let his face fall keeping up the act. "Mizuki-sensei said that I was still near the bottom of the class... He gave me this super-cool extra credit assignment to get better than Sasuke... That bastard." He for one thought his acting was flawless.

Iruka knew that this meant that Mizuki was probably either a traitor or one of the Kyuubi-brat crowd. That kinda hurt. They had been friends since childhood. Maybe he wasn't completely crazy?

Mizuki chose that moment as the perfect one to jump out of a tree and throw a few kunai hoping to pin Iruka to the convenient near-by hut. Unluckily for him Naruto had been expecting the traitor to show up and set up one of the many maneuvers he had thought up with his kage bunshin. He created one and then had it kawarimi out with Iruka thus saving him from kunai-in-leg syndrome.

When the various chakra smokes cleared a unharmed Iruka and Naruto were facing Mizuki who had a couple monstrous shuriken.

Mizuki looked at them. Looked at the shack. Looked back at them. He cocked his head to the side. "Okay I give. Why is no one stuck to the hut? Painfully."

Not wanting to give anything away to anyone Naruto spoke up. "Didn't you see Iruka kawarimi?" Iruka shot him a questioning look knowing he did no such thing. Naruto gave him the universal sign for 'be quiet dumb-ass!'

Mizuki was unimpressed with this... "Okay ya know. Screw all of this. Give me the damn scroll so no one has to die. You were a means to an end and that's all you need to know. Now, scroll please."

"Now now Mizuki sensei... We say otherwise." With a quick cross hand seal, though Naruto felt he could probably do it seal-less, 500 clones popped into existence. Naruto punched one in the face light enough so it didn't dispel. "We are a LOT better than what beat Iruka-sensei. Can you handle that?" Gotta love scare tactics. The next fifteen minutes left Mizuki battered, bruised, and unconscious.

Naruto walked forward and used his special henge to turn a clone into some rope and hog tied Mizuki. "This guy has officially made my list of people with bastard on the end of their names. Right up there with Sasuke and that fat old lady who sells me crappy weapons."

Iruka face-faulted. Trying to betray the village and kill you was certainly not a good way to stay off that kind of list. "Alright Naruto. We still need to talk to the Sandaime about this."

Naruto did not need to act to get his next line out perfectly. "Aww Shit."

**.oOo.**

Naruto was currently shuffling his feet as he and Iruka waited outside the Sandaime's office at about 12:30 at night. The bitchy secretary finally let them in.

"Okay Naruto. Iruka tells me you did WAAAY better than expected on the genin exam and then proceeded to learn an A-rank kinjutsu and defeat an upper level chuunin." Sandaime didn't mince words apparently.

"Well," Naruto was currently debating the merits of bringing the Kyuubi into it, he decided the asshole was gonna get outed eventually and spoke up. "I blame Kyuubi."

The effects were instantaneous. All the color drained out of both the Hokage and Iruka's faces and four ANBU captains materialized out of thin air somehow. "Damn gramps. You got this place wired so that whenever I say kyuubi four ANBU appear?"

Naruto commented. Four more ANBU shunshined in. "I'm hoping that was a coincidence gramps?"

Most everyone was too shocked to question anybody. Naruto let them regain their composure. The Hokage made a split second decision having figured that if Naruto wasn't going crazy and killing everyone that one of the stupid villagers had gotten too creative with the whole 'Demon-brat' spiel. He dismissed the ANBU who had been a coincidence and not a Kyuubi word detector squad. Not that such a thing existed... Really. "Okay Naruto. I'm assuming you have some sort of earth shattering explanation that will shatter the way we saw you previously?"

"Right in one gramps." Naruto responded.

Iruka was still mumbling words like "not supposed to know." and "Where'd my idiot buddy go?" The Hokage continued, "I feared that such was likely. When people put you and the Kyuubi together awful things are bound to happen. Well awful to those that you don't like at least."

"Want the short explanation or the long drawn out earth shattering explanation?" The Hokage shot him a look. "Okay fine! I'll give you the long one."

"Well it all started when I was a baby. You see, when Kyuubi was sealed into me he immediately realized he wasn't getting out. He was slightly familiar with jinchuurikis and decided that how I acted and how strong I was reflected back on him. He took a look farther down the line and decided that my personality left lots to be desired. He used some odd super demon chakra or something to alter my personality. He Split it. Can you hear the capital letter in that one? Basically what he did was make me into a Haruno temporarily. He gave one part of me all the intelligence and mischievousness and general Narutoness you know and love and even used some of that magic demon chakra to increase my sense of strategy, tactics, and intelligence even more." He took a long pause.

"Apparently he fucked up big time though. The Naruto he was conditioning to never see the light of day managed to gain mental dominance and that's where you get the stupid, brash, border-line retard Naruto that's been running around for the last twelve or so years. The Kyuubi was furious. He had expected the new me to be a ninja and use the intelligence he had gifted me to train and be the best there was so that he could look good. Unfortunately for me and Kyuubi it was retard-Naruto that was running around. Just before the genin exams Stupid-naruto was at a point of mental weakness. Don't ask me why I just took advantage of it," He stopped again and gave them a slightly pitying look, "at this point in time the Kyuubi is killing your Naruto. Don't ask me how but he's gone. What you see is what you get so If you still want to be friends I'm still Naruto. I'm brighter and more creative and all-around better but I'm still the Naruto you know. We have the same memories because we are technically just a really odd case of MPD or Multiple Personality Disorder but now the other one's gone."

He paused again. "Any questions?" Apparently it was a good if immensely shocking explanation and they just gave him funny looks.

"I'm inclined to believe you Naruto. The Kyuubi was very vain where power and status were involved and I can see that desire to not appear weak by having a strong host. But you say he's changed your personality? Can he do that again to make you go on a homicidal rampage? Or otherwise corrupt you?" The Hokage voiced his doubts.

"Nope. It was a one time deal. He could only fuck with my head back when I was an easily molded baby. So like a said, the Naruto you see is the Naruto you get."

"You've given us a lot to think about Naruto... But nothing dangerous obviously. I just ask you to keep your knowledge of the Kyuubi on the down low."

Both Naruto and Iruka got shocked looks on their faces. Then looked at each other and mouthed 'down low?'. The Hokage noticed this exchange and shouted "I can be hip!"

There was a muffled voice from outside the office. "No you can't Hokage-sama!" yelled his secretary. "Shut up Mikoto-chan!" The Hokage yelled back petulantly.

Shocked and slightly disturbed by this scene of un-Hokage like behavior both Iruka and Naruto walked silently out of the man's office.

**.oOo.**

**AN: Surprised I'm actually updating properly? If you've read my other fics you'd know my updates are usually sporadic and unreliable. Today though I'm very much in the mood of the writer and am still writing more as I upload this. I forget if I was supposed to explain something here so PM me if there's anything you don't understand.**


	3. 20 megatons you say? Really?

**AN: The fact that I'm even starting this chapter now hints that this will be a very quick update. I wanted to let you guys fester for a while since I didn't like how little a response I got. Then I remembered that I would never read a story that was only five thousand words so I resolved to just suck it up and if my story was good enough by the time it was as long as the more famous stories it would be equally as popular. Without further ado. Chapter 3.**

**.oOo.**

The meeting with the Hokage had been a late one and Naruto got into bed glad that his infallible poker face had protected his more valuable secrets.

**Hey boy!**

The demons tone was about as fake as 'male enhancement'. It was equally sarcastic. 'Here's one of my bigger secrets talking to me now!'

Luckily for him the aforementioned poker face, developed through years of watching the villages glare at what he had dubbed Stupid-Naruto, had held up to the Hokage's scrutiny and he had not found out about his mental link with the demon. Naruto wasn't stupid though, as soon as he had gained control of his body again the Kyuubi began to incessantly contact him. He knew that the demon would provide him chakra if he needed it to survive so he made no attempt to return the demon's contact.

**You are absolutely no fun you know that?**

The Kyuubi was certainly a talented evil demon lord. He had managed to make a line that would sound pouty on any human as menacing as any human death threat. Of course even ignoring that particular issue there was still more that Naruto had decided to keep from his loved ones.

His most precious secret was his true strength. Well that's a lie. He was only a bit stronger than Sasuke and only because of his rigorous training in the basics, his well developed sense of tactics didn't hurt any either. The whole rigorous training in the basics thing was the real secret. He had told the Sandaime that he wasn't the old Naruto. What Sandaime didn't know was that the reason for Naruto's legendary insomnia was that he had been taking over control of his body while stupid-Naruto was weakest, rather he took control of his body while he was asleep.

He used that time and Stupid-Naruto's memories of academy lessons to train himself in the basics so that when he was strong enough to take control of his body he would be stronger physically. A year before the day that he had regained control of his body he had found there was no way to make his academy three any better. He had analyzed their effectiveness and where to use them in battle and come up with hundreds of places where they could get you out of a tight spot. He had then trained relentlessly until he could do each with no noise, smoke, hand-seals and without saying anything. He had then found even _more _things to do with them. He had found stupid-Naruto's method of making a solid henge. He had discovered that you could make a clone appear other places than beside you by concentrating on where you wanted it. He had even found that you could kawarimi with people if you had more chakra than them. He had _went beyond_ perfecting them, he had _improved _upon what hadn't been changed since the sage of the sixth paths, and that made him proud. But as cool as it was to be able to think you had improved upon an age-old jutsu it meant that he was done with them and other than shinobi-history, a civilian education and weapons that was all you learned at the academy and without a clan that was all he could learn with his nighttime control.

At that point he had been forced to use the time to improve upon his physical strength with endless laps and basic calisthenics. He had done push ups, sit ups, chin ups, and any other up you could think of trying to give stupid-Naruto an edge so that if he could never regain control hopefully stupid-Naruto wouldn't get them both killed because his taijutsu sucked. The point was moot now though. He _did _have control, and that was all that mattered.

With his mandatory emo thoughts for the evening taken care of Naruto finally found that one _really _comfortable spot on his bed and drifted off to sleep.

**.oOo.**

When Naruto awoke the next morning he was infinitely glad that team assignments and the real genin exams weren't for three and four days respectively. His reasons for this were that he intended to wow the crap out of his jounin sensei. He had no doubt that with his luck he would get an immensely powerful sensei who would turn out to be a horrible teacher. Because of this he wanted to prove himself as a ninja so that he could compete in the soonest chuunin exams and get off whatever horrible team he expected to be assigned to. His reason for such pessimism? The fact that the only semi-tolerable people in the class were Shikamaru, Shino, the Hyuuga girl and a few of the faceless clanless nobodies. The first for his shogi skills and the last three for their ability to not be loud and annoying as hell. Although he was sure that _he'd _be a faceless clanless nobody if it weren't or the Kyuubi and his loud annoyingness.

His thinking was getting way off onto a tangent though. His reason for wanting the training time was mostly because he felt with the addition of the three kage bunshin techniques he could gain a large amount of skill in a very short time.

His first target? The shinobi library. He jumped out of bed and within 15 minutes had performed his morning ablutions and was standing in front of the great metal building. He had never been in it before considering he had only had control of his body for a couple of days and you couldn't have _paid _stupid-Naruto to go to a library of any kind.

The outside of the building was very imposing. It was disguised as a steel warehouse but Naruto was sure the inside was designed like a library. The reasons for the disguise were obvious. If enemy shinobi knew exactly where to find the place because of a large sign or similarly stupid way of marking the place then the library would be under constant attack by enemies looking for an upper-hand against one of the strongest of the hidden villages.

Stopping such intellectual thoughts Naruto walked through the imposing steel doors and into the main library flashing his headband to show his clearance. The Library was **enormous **luckily there were former shinobi that got jobs as aides to show the shinobi to the information they needed to further their careers. Walking quickly into a shadowy corner Naruto made his first seal-less attempt at the kage bunshin and succeeded easily. Thanking the gods that he had found the kage bunshin technique as it was already paying off royally the twenty five bunshins each henged into a member of the graduating class. It wouldn't do to be spotted in two or three places at once now would it?

He didn't have to direct the bunshin at all thankfully as they, being copies of him, already knew exactly what he wanted. Namely any techniques he thought could help him. With an almost unlimited number of clones it wasn't outlandish to say he could be chuunin level by the time he was officially a genin.

At the moment though he left the clones to there own devices knowing that each knew to come find him once they had checked out a few scrolls that looked promising. Sure in that knowledge Naruto started in on the short trek to the nearest secluded training ground.

**.oOo.**

He immediately created five of the physical relaying clones and had them begin a basic calisthenics routine. He was sure he'd be feeling that one in the morning but it was obviously necessary to his growth as a ninja. He settled down to wait for the clones. He really had nothing to train in that wasn't already being done by the clones and the roughly 50,000 CC's of chakra it had cost to create them would be sorely missed. So he was hitting two birds with one stone here. He was regaining his lost chakra by resting and waiting for the clones from the library.

Roughly half an hour later the clones returned each with a couple scrolls in their hands. Knowing what he would want before him telling them the clones began to disperse in groups of three until the last group was gone and Naruto had a good idea of what he'd be studying.

Of the titles that had assaulted his mind moments ago the one about jutsu creation caught his eyes the most. He decided that would be the one he read personally. He called into existence double the number of scrolls worth of clones and they knew instinctively what he wanted.

Specifically what he wanted was for each scroll to have two clones on it. The first clone would be reading it in the most normal way. The second clone would run off and use the small fortune that had built up from the orphans stipend stupid-Naruto had received but had not been able to use due to the asshole villagers, to buy a notebook that would be used to take notes on the contents of the scroll. It was Naruto's thought that with roughly fifty notebooks he could get fifty scrolls a day for a good while and not need to get new notebooks. Also, luckily, there was no such thing as too much stuff because he could always get a clone to carry it.

Then the second clone would disperse and the first clone would re-read the scroll this time taking notes on the important things. Naruto figured that the memories that returned to him would make it feel as if he had read each scroll twice and then taken notes on it which would give him a solid grasp of its contents.

With his plan for his own mental growth Naruto sat down with his chosen scroll and began to read on the subject of jutsu creation.

**-Jutsu Creation - E to SS Rank - Is considered a branch of the ninja arts that isn't battle practical unless one is a master that is unrivaled in the history of the world. It is a skill that comes from an intimate knowledge of how chakra flows and how each hand seal effects the jutsu. An unrivaled master could create a technique for every situation. Such a master has never appeared however. Jutsu creation is an E to SS rank skill that can be learned by anyone but is only truly useful in the hands of someone incredibly intelligent. Someone who learns this art can use their knowledge of how hand-seals affect the way chakra flows to create their own jutsus. An average user of the skill would be expected to take at least a week to develop a low level skill than another month or two to actually master it to any level. **

**The hand-seals taught in the academy are only the seals known to higher level ninja as 'training wheel hand seals' The twelve seals of the zodiac animals. Though there are many more hand seals. There are specialization hand-seals that direct your chakra to flow in unusual ways. There are the five elemental hand-seals that direct your chakra to change elements until you can learn to do it yourself. Basically hand-seals do things for you that you can learn how to do. Therefore the art of jutsu creation is merely combining these hand-seals until they would direct your chakra in the way that it would do what you intend your new jutsu to do. Then the next step is to learn to do the jutsu without these helpful hand-seals by memorizing the way the chakra flows and making it flow that way yourself.**

**'**Well shit' Naruto thought as he read the short introduction. 'This will be helpful. Not to toot my own horn but I'm sure I'm 'incredibly intelligent' enough to make this crud work' The explanation had given him an idea for a variation on kage bunshin so he called one of his clones over and began a discussion with them. "Are you alive?" was his blunt first statement.

"I suppose I'm alive in the medical sense. I could feel my heart beat and I can think for myself, but we both know the concept behind kage bunshin. For some reason if you punch me in the face hard enough it will disrupt something and I'll go poof." The clone responded.

Naruto's idea was an ambitious one. He was hoping to improve the kage bunshin to the point that he was practically creating life. In a way he already was. The kage bunshin had just held a conversation with him so he knew it was as intelligent as any one. It had proved to have a heart beat and such.

Naruto paused in his thoughts. He made his chakra flow the way it needed to create a kage bunshin but instead of focusing on making five or ten or fifty he focused on making one clone. He focused enough chakra for three and let the clone poof into being. As soon as the smoke cleared Naruto leaned over and punched the clone in the face as hard as he could. The clone flew ten feet and hit a tree. It didn't disperse. Extremely happy with the results of his experiment he told his new clone to stand up so they could try something new.

"Okay cloney boy. We're gonna try to change how you kage bunshin work here. I want you to focus all of your chakra into increasing your senses like they taught us at the academy for recon missions."

The clone gave him a look that said quite clearly, 'Talking to a shadow clone is like talking to yourself, that's a sign of insanity, are you crazy?' but he did as asked.

"Okay we're gonna make one little change..." Naruto trailed off as if contemplating ideas. Suddenly he created two more clones.

"You guys know what I want right?" They gave him a 'duh!' look and focused their chakra the way he asked. One clone had used his chakra for nothing but augmenting his speed while the other had done a mix of the previous two clones using half of his chakra for increasing senses and the rest for increasing speed. Each clone had three times as much chakra as the normal clones.

"Okay I'm sure you guys have figured out that you are now going to be referred to as recon clones and you will be used for scouting and guarding camp on missions right? I'm assuming that with no chakra running through your system that isn't increasing senses or speed that you'll be dispersed very easily. You can disperse yourselves and be glad you helped me with such an important experiment!"

They each grumbled about being used as guinea pigs before dispersing like asked. He decided to try one more experiment before trying to make a clone that couldn't be dispersed as was his original goal. He once again called up a clone with three times the normal chakra. He then proceeded to stab it with a kunai. It managed to last for a few seconds before dispersing and giving Naruto the pleasant memories of being stabbed by himself. 'Well at least now I know how much it can handle, I reckon it managed to survive until it lost a little over a gallon of blood.'

Now was the moment of truth. He was now attempting to cheat the gods. Well actually probably not since they hadn't cared about what he had dubbed as the tank clone which was about half alive. Anyway cheating the gods sounded more ambitious and scary so that was what he was going to call his permanent kage bunshin. His theory was that if he made a clone that had all of his chakra that since chakra was life energy it would actually be alive. He thought this based on his previous conversation with a clone. It had too little chakra to stay on the physical plane as a living being but if he took a soldier pill so that he had more than his total of 300,000 CC's of chakra he could give that amount to a clone and it would be alive. Essentially it would be an exact copy of him in every way.

Throwing off all his doubts he began channeling every last bit of chakra he had in his system. Feeling about 250,000 CC's at his beck and call but knowing he had more he dug deeper, into the corners of his coils until he had every last intangible drop of his considerable 300,000, give or take a few, CC's of chakra at his command. With all that chakra he forces it out of his tenketsu and into the pattern that would produce a shadow clone. Feeling his energy leaving him he pooped the pill he had on a hand. The pill was designed for a jounin with around 50,000 CC's of chakra and therefore returned about 25,000 CC's of his lost energy.

Now that he had all the chakra swirling attempting to become a shadow clone he felt one of his reading clones poof and give him more info on the shadow clone that was available to the public. It was one of those annoying scrolls that taught you everything you needed to know about a jutsu except how to do it. Unfortunately it had some of the barely understood theory about the kage bunshin that basically told him that what he was doing right now would be expected to cause the clone to explode with the force of 20 megatons or enough to level Konoha and a whole bunch of the surrounding area to the ground. 'Well shit' Naruto thought. 'I_ really_ hope they never actually _proved _it would explode...'

**AN: There you have it! Naruto may or may not explode! It may work... It may unravel space and time and let him relive the academy days as smart-Naruto. For all I know it may rip open a portal between worlds and drop the FFX cast into Konoha! Actually I do know I just like leaving people with cliffhangers XD.**


	4. Living clones and asshole senseis

**AN: Damn! I must really be into this story! I've written more and updated more reliably on this story in a week than on any of the others in five months! Now that my thinking out loud is finished you can enjoy the resolution of the cliffhanger... You didn't think I would actually cross this over with FFX did you? Or kill 'im? Whatever, on to the fanfic!**

**.oOo.**

As he was furiously thinking of ways to avoid an explosion that, based on the science classes in the academy, could kill people 30 miles away he noticed that the swirling chakra was making the clone instead of preparing to blow. Apparently the chakra was creating a _real _body for the clone instead of the fake one that the chakra provided for the lesser clones. He watched both fascinated and disturbed as the integumentary system, or skin to people who haven't taken basic biology, formed, oddly see-through allowing him to watch as bones, organs, blood vessels, and other disgusting things that were meant to stay internal formed inside. He could even sense a fully developed chakra coil system come into being which immediately went to work trying to refill the clones completely empty reserves.

Finally after watching things no person was meant to see, Naruto watched the clone, if it could still be called that at this point, fall onto its hands and knees and start breathing heavily.

At exactly the same time both creator and clone stated, "Based on everything we know you should be exploded," Again at the same time they both laughed.

Naruto had absolutely no idea how to approach the situation. Seeing what he had seen he knew his experiment was a success but he wasn't sure what he would do with a living shadow clone. He suddenly came up with a perfect plan of action. He spoke up, "Okay exact living copy of me I'm sure we have identical questions we want answered but we have to see the Sandaime at some point to tell him why there is a living shadow clone running around. Until we can come up for a suitable name for you you're gonna be known as N1, short for Naruto 1. Also I don't want you to be an exact copy of me. We are either gonna have to give you a haircut or figure out a way to grow it out fast. Then we gotta get you some new clothes and maybe even dye your hair. Once we can give the impression that we're simply long lost brothers or something we're gonna freak the hell out of people, most notably our new team, by acting identical. Got it?"

"Right boss!" the first ever living clone responded.

'Shit!' Naruto thought, 'The first one I get that's permanent and he's the only one that's ever been polite! Stuck in the 'I'm a non-permanent copy of you so you can order me around however you want' mindset too!'. Annoyed by the new development Naruto spoke up hoping to nip it in the bud. "Yeah... Don't want you doing that either,"

"What boss?" The clone responded.

"That,"

"This boss?"

'This is gonna be a _loooooooooong_ day...'

**.oOo.**

The Sandaime had been immensely shocked by the development but in the end had just muttered that you should expect things like this from Naruto and had added N1 to the ninja record, also adding him to team 7 although he refused to tell Naruto the other members.

Now Naruto and N1 were walking away from the last stop on their 'transform N1 tour' which was the hair place. N1 was currently sporting a black T-shirt that proudly proclaimed 'Don't let your mind wander, it's to small to be out on its own', grayish camouflage cargo pants and a spiked belt with gray happy faces that matched the pants perfectly. His hair was cut at half the original length and was dyed neon green, at the hair place he had said with a smirk "To match my buddy's neon yellow," as if his was dyed also. Apparently he wasn't as polite as he had been at creation once he truly realized he was there to stay.

They had theorized on the living kage bunshin's effects on the way around town to transform him and decided that at the moment N1 was created he and Naruto were completely identical but now that they would have different life experiences by the time they were senior citizens they would be as different as anyone else. Like twins. Except born at the age of twelve. N1 and Naruto were an odd pair if you hadn't noticed yet.

They had also determined that since they were exact copies at the time of creation they could use the exact same training regiment. Therefore they headed to Naruto's training ground and began the process that Naruto started that morning. It was simply a matter of kunai kage bunshining the scrolls and they could both study. Due to the chakra expended during N1's creation they would have to forgo the chakra intensive physical clones for the day. At the moment they each only had around 75,000 CC's left. That was a good bit considering they had been drained dry a few hours before but they didn't want to waste it.

By the end of the day they had found a good amount of stuff to be training in the next day.

**.oOo.**

Anyone stumbling upon their training the next day would be as shocked as it was possible for a ninja to be. Unfortunately for the humor in that situation the most shocked a good ninja got was a slight widening of the eyes. It was an amazing sight, scattered around the clearing were groups of Naruto and N1 clones practicing everything from basic tree walking and leaf floating to the five basic techniques for the five elements. There was even a group of ten clones, five Naruto and five N1, working on explosive tag making and detonation. Basically it was amazing ANBU weren't swarming. Actually considering the lax security of the leaf it was no surprise at all.

The real Naruto and N1 were forced to sit on the sidelines and come up for ideas on how to use the kage bunshin and variations that they had learned in combat. So far revolutionary ideas like tossing solid henged Naruto-kunai only to have them transform into a clone when they had flown by the target and throw another Naruto-kunai then to use the kunai-kage bunshin to make a hundred Naruto kunais which would then all transform back and decimate the target with low powered fire or wind techniques which working together acted like much higher level techniques. Basically they were concocting strategies that would leave their new jounin sensei at their mercy.

The reason for them being on the sidelines, though, was simply that if they were out there getting tired all the clones they made would be tired. So staying there and regenerating chakra was the best course of action.

**.oOo.**

Over the next few days the elemental techniques the clones were practicing went up in rank and power never exceeding C-rank though. The level of chakra control exercises also went up several notches from tree walking to water walking and finally to the most advanced basic technique grass walking. Naruto and N1 had even come up with a chakra control exercise the likes of which had never been seen before. It was revolutionary really. They had called it chakra sectioning. They had wrote a description in one of the many notebooks they had acquired lately.

**Chakra Sectioning – Unranked – Original – Chakra sectioning is the art of taking a portion of your chakra and using it to section off your reserves. This allows you to access a smaller amount of chakra than your full stores thus increasing the precision and control with which you use your chakra. We have three thousand sections each with a hundred CC's of chakra. When you are accessing your chakra you use a certain amount of sections based on how much chakra you need. A user of this technique can access one section, ten sections, a hundred sections, or even all of them if an unbelievably large amount of chakra were needed. This makes it possible for a genin who has large reserves but only average control to use the control intensive techniques like genjutsu and medical techniques.**

**This is possible due to the fact that the less chakra you have the easier it is to control. The technique chakra sectioning makes it so you are in essence 3000 average genin working together.**

The technique while immensely useful didn't help much if their control still sucked which is why the clones practicing the walking techniques and leaf floating were needed. Even grass walking after a certain point only increased reserves so they had to develop new intermediate level chakra control techniques because anything higher than basic was locked away in the ANBU library which was basically the shinobi library only with much better security and a higher level clearance required. At least jounin.

Anyway their approach for developing higher level control techniques was to combine basic techniques together and than later they had added using jutsu to the mix. The day before the genin team assignments ten clones could be seen walking on top of the grass while balancing a leaf on their elbows palms and forehead simultaneously. Amazing as that was the clone than proceeded to kawarimi with a piece of grass that had been blowing by.

N1 had on two or three occasions tried to con Naruto into making another living clone but Naruto had refused saying that he didn't want to have to explain to the Sandaime that he now had to make the first ever five man genin team.

**.oOo.**

So it was that after three days of unbelievably effective training Naruto and N1 arrived at the Shinobi Academy for team assignments with a whole new arsenal of techniques and the control to use them without blowing a bazillion CC's of chakra more than they needed.

As they walked in most ignored them but Iruka came up to them and looked between them three times. He seemed to realize than N1 was an almost carbon copy of Naruto and sighed before mumbling and walking off. "Damn that Naruto and his finding of random twins... I mean god what next? Mechanized spider robots controlled by chakra that shoot electrified ninja wire and explosive notes?"

N1 seeing a pranking opportunity turned to Naruto and stage whispered urgently, "Shit Naruto he found out our plans for taking over Konoha!" Iruka passed out. Naruto sent him a slight glare and muttered, "That's hilarious and all but now someone has to wake him up.

N1 bent over and slapped him in the face twice before materializing modified smelling salts and holding them under Iruka's nose. He immediately jumped up and began dry heaving. "Holy shit guys! What is that stuff?!"

"Modified smelling salts," N1 responded.

"What's _**in **_it?!"

"Sock extract mixed with rotting sewage. Flavored by over a hundred samples of the excrement of Konoha native animals,"

"I suppose it's effective," Iruka spat out after another bout of dry heaves.

"That's the spirit!" N1 encouraged.

Iruka finally got a hold of himself and walked to the front to read the teams.

"Team one is Ashiti Yuki, Masahari Takeshi, and Akado Suki. Team two is..."

After the first one they tuned Iruka out and walked over to Shikamaru. He looked genuinely happy to have his shogi partner back and seemed to just ignore N1's presence. Seeing a friendly face made the two want very much to have the Nara boy on their team.

Once they reached the boy's seat they took out the shogi set and began setting up their black pieces. Shikamaru spoke up, "Isn't two against one a little unfair? Even if I have no idea how good what's-his-name is?"

"Aw Shika-chan, I'm sure if you just stay in that damnable pose the whole game you'd beat us both easily. I mean honestly that pose must be a Yamanaka technique or something. Focuses your mind like nothing else..." Naruto teased.

Shikamaru frowned at the nickname but obligingly shifted into his pose. Fifteen minutes later he had lost only five pawns and declared "Checkmate,"

"Damn pose," Both Naruto and N1 muttered simultaneously. Despite all appearances they had heard their placement on Team seven and bemoaned their fates inwardly. They had discovered that kage bunshin have a mental link with the creator so that whatever he thinks the clones hear and vice versa. This also applied to N1 and the two boys were having a mental conversation.

_"This is awful! A fan girl and The 'Avenger'. I swear they make children's lunch boxes with that boy's face on it!" _Naruto began

_"Honestly... What do you propose we do about it?" _N1 responded.

_"It's nothing worth fighting too much over... We'll just deal with it as it comes. For all we know Sakura could be a good person under all the bitchy Sasuke worshiping." _

_"And the self-proclaimed avenger?"_

_"He is most certainly a lost cause. That boy would rape steal and murder to get power to kill that brother of his."_

_"Flight risk?"_

_"Probably, if someone outside the village offered him power he'd be gone in the snap of the fingers."_

_"We can't let anyone else have the sharingan. Or at least that's what the village would say I'm sure we could kill the kid if he tried to run off."_

_"Yeah... We'll do our best to keep that from happening. Too much trouble. Maybe have a clone or two teach him some stuff so he thinks Konoha is a good source of power?"_

_"Good idea. Basic psychology and all that."_

Iruka had long since finished calling teams and senseis had come and gone for every team but theirs. Sasuke, Sakura, Naruto and N1 were all that remained.

Naruto and N1 had spent the first fifteen minutes of the wait concocting a plan to punish the asshole that dared to be this friggin' late.

"What the hell are you doing loser?" Sakura had noticed Naruto get up and begin setting trip wires storage seals and modified momentum seals.

Naruto had responded with a cold glare. "It's simple Haruno-san. Our sensei is way beyond the appointed time. I bet she/he does this often and doesn't get punished so I'll handle the punishing. In prank form. It's really a simple concept. One the _top kunoichi _should understand instantly,"

Sakura stepped back shocked by his outburst. She had noticed his change in apparel and personality but was sure nothing could shake his crush on her. She was rather disappointed but not shocked. She knew she was a bitch to him, but before he had made it so easy. Now that he was fighting back she couldn't escalate it or risk punishment or even worse making her look bad in front of Sasuke-kun.

At that moment Naruto finished his preparations and slipped back into his seat and began conversing about inane things with N1. He had discovered lately that shadow clones and N1 especially weren't _exact _copies of him. He had found that while physically they were him exactly, mentally each one had mostly the same personality but each trait was magnified to a different amount. For example N1 was twice as mischievous as Naruto and three times as polite. That only applied with strangers and people they didn't know well though. With people like Iruka and the Hokage N1 was a ruthless troublemaker and often quite rude. He also wasn't as intelligent as Naruto. He was still extremely bright but while Naruto could be considered a genius N1 was simply smart. Basically N1 was on someone like Sakura's level while Naruto was more on Shikamaru and the other Naras level.

Finally after N1 and Naruto had argued for fifteen minutes on dogs versus cats Kakashi wandered in.

Immediately an eraser lodged in the door fell on his head. "My first impression of you is-" he was cut off by a time release storage-momentum seal which launched ten water balloons full of different colored paint at his body. All except one impacted him making him look like the poster child for the gay-rights movement. As he prepared to again dispense his first impression another seal above him launched five pounds worth of itching powder down and onto the jounin. As soon as the powder made contact ten seals spread around the room activated each one sending one water balloon full of mysterious liquids at the jounin. One liquid was designed to eat away at clothes. Another was designed to cause a slightly painful stinging sensation on any exposed skin. Just as the jounin was about to declare himself impressed by their trap laying abilities a couple more seals activated three balloons of glue coated the jounin and then the floor dropped out from under him leaving him in a dumpster sized vat of pillow feathers in the academy basement.

After a few minutes to regain his senses the man jumped back up to the classroom and declared "Replace the balloons with kunai and the vat of feathers with something deadly and you have a well thought out trap. Maybe you'll be the first to pass my test."

"Better be well thought out," Naruto muttered, "I spent almost 10,000 yen making that stuff."Everyone ignored him.

"Test Kakashi sensei?" Sakura asked. 'Apparently she was busy bothering Sasuke when Iruka-sensei explained the genin test.' Naruto thought to himself.

"Yes, pinky a test. I'll let you in on a secret," He leaned in close with an eye smile on that masked face, "It has a 66.6% failure rate. How do you like your chances?"

She frowned along with the Uchiha. Naruto and N1 remained neutral.

"And the bloody mist's has a 50% death rate. What's your point?" Naruto queried.

Annoyed by the reduced effectiveness his comment caused his statement he spoke up, "Whatever, meet me on the roof," And shunshined away.

_"Damn, why didn't we get a scroll on that?" _Naruto asked.

_"Because we're stupid that's why," N1 responded._

**.oOo.**

"Okay guys," Kakashi started once everyone had made it to them roof, "Let's start with introductions, Pinky you first," Sakura bristled at being called Pinky for the second time but spoke up nonetheless.

"Why don't you go first sensei? We don't even know your name."

He deliberated for a moment before eye smiling and speaking, "Okay then, My name is Hatake Kakashi. I like lots of things and dislike others. My goal...? Well I have lots of hobbies."

"All we got is his name!" Sakura whispered furiously.

"Now you Pinky."

"Well... I like," She glanced at Sasuke and giggled. "I don't like Ino-pig and getting bad grades. My goal is..." She stopped and giggled while looking at Sasuke and then repeated the process as she mentioned hobbies.

"Okay..." Kakashi muttered, "You next Broody,"

He frowned deeper than usual and began "I have few likes and many dislikes, My goal is to revive my clan and kill it's slaughterer. My only hobby is training."

"Good goal Mr. Sunshine," Kakashi declared happily. "You next um..." He couldn't seem to come up for an offensive nickname on the fly for someone of N1's oddness. "Well you anyway," He finished pointing at N1.

He grinned brightly, "I don't have a name. I like nothing. I dislike chauvinists," He sent a glare at Sakura, "Brooders," A glare at Sasuke, "People who aren't punctual." He sent a glare at Kakashi. "And everything else. My goal is to become stronger than I am now. My hobbies are training and well... That's about it."

"Okay than..." Kakashi mumbled, " You Blondie you're next."

N1 and Naruto had already decided to portray themselves as polar opposites so his introduction was unsurprising to N1. The point was to freak out people. That's what their point usually was.

"I'm Uzumaki Naruto. I love everything. I dislike nothing. My goal is to make the world a better place full of sunshine and rainbows and happiness. I also wish to rule the world! My hobbies are training to take over the world, and hanging out with him," pointing at N1.

"You guys are a very interesting group!" It was obvious he was disturbed by the things he had heard. "Meet me at training ground seven so we can do that test. Bye!" He seemed to be about to shunshin but stopped and said, "And don't eat anything for Breakfast. You'll just throw up." before disappearing.

N1 and Naruto scoffed at the stupid notion. Not eating was much less intelligent than eating but throwing up for some reason. Your performance in the field is drastically reduced if you're hungry.

They walked off to prepare for the test the next day.

**.oOo.**

**AN: Another chapter down... These get harder every time I write them... They just flowed easier when I was writing the first and the second chapter. Anyway I'm looking for suggestions for a better name for N1 than N1. Other than that thanks for reading and reviews are always inspirational!**


	5. Mutant bunnies and mechanized spiders

**AN: I'm just crapping these out like crazy lately aren't I? Anyway I received one name suggestion but I didn't like them much so I decided to go with his other suggestion of translating something about him. Well probably. It didn't turn up in this chapter so it's probable I might even leave it N1. I'm not all that reliable XD. If you haven't noticed I _really _like that smiley. Anyway, ON WITH THE SHOW!**

**.oOo. **

The time between Kakashi's interview and the test the next day was uneventful. Naruto and N1 did normal roommate things like playing poker and watching bad TV and laughing at it. Time went by fast and they went to bed early so as to avoid lowering their combat effectiveness the next day. They had decided that impressing their asshole of a sensei wouldn't be any fun so they planned to leave him in the dust. By being smarter than him if nothing else.

As they were mentally discussing things they simultaneously found that sweet spot. Naruto on his comfy bed and N1 on his not-so-comfy air mattress.

**.oOo. **

They had arrived at the training field five minutes early. By five minutes early I mean they arrived two hours and fifty five minutes after the appointed time. Sure enough exactly three hours after the time he had stated he showed up.

"Sorry I'm late. I was ambushed by mechanized spiders and an army of battle ready mutant bunnies," Everyone was too shocked to refute the obviously fake excuse. "Also there was cake," Everyone face-faulted.

"Anyway I have these bells here and you gotta take 'em, savvy? Also whoever fails gets sent back to the Academy. So ya know you should probably try real hard. Also as you probably know I'm a jounin. My rank description says I should be expected to take out a hundred of you little genin. So you cant hold back,"

"But sensei! There's only three bells!" Sakura seemed unhappy with the exercise.

"Astute observation Sakura," his tone said he thought the opposite, "At least one of you will definitely fail. Who knows though? You might all fail!"

From the expressions on Sasuke's and Sakura's faces that was not a happy thought. Naruto and N1 however were working up a mental conversation.

_"You realize this test is a sham right?" _Naruto asked.

_"Anyone who knows how the picking of teams work would know this was a sham," _N1 responded.

The picking of teams in Konoha was all about teamwork and specialization. The teams were designed to either have members that worked well together or members who shared a specialty. It was easy to see why this years teams were the way they were. Team eight was a tracking/recon team with a clan heir from each of the prominent tracking/recon clans. Team ten was the next incarnation of the Ino-Shika-Cho trio and was built on the teamwork factor as well as the, Shika/Ino traps + Cho pounds = easy victory formula. If they knew how much Ino and the other two clashed they might have built the teams a bit differently.

Anyway the whole point of Konoha teams is that the members chosen for them are chosen for a reason and if one dies or in the case of this test doesn't get a bell it messes up the whole team dynamic. Therefore the two were able to conclude that the bells were simply a distraction. While Kakashi was going into his spiel about coming at him with the intent to kill Naruto figured out the true purpose in one big flash of inspiration.

_"Hey N1? What's the principle Konoha's built on? Naruto asked._

_"Well... I'd have to say teamwork, but that can't be the purpose of this test. This test seems to actively discourage teamwo- Oh... I get it," _

_"Exactly. This test is all about getting us to overcome the less bells than people factor and work as a team. Only... We have about a snowballs chance in hell of getting Sasuke to work with anyone,"_

_"Why don't we just see if our teamwork is enough to pass the whole team? He doesn't know that for the first twelve years of my memories I was you so he should think our teamwork flawless! If it doesn't work there will probably be some loophole to get us passed, it's not like anyone would be willing to let the Uchiha fail,"_

_"Good points all, and I think Kakashi's about to start this thing..."_

_"Let's go,"_

**.oOo.**

"And start!" Kakashi declared as the clock he had brought began to tick down the remaining hours, minutes, and seconds.

Immediately after he finished speaking both Sakura and Sasuke had disappeared into the canopy of several trees and bushes. Naruto and N1 had enacted a plan. Each one created an extremely powerful tank clone in a clearing about a hundred feet away. They could see the clones but the clones couldn't see them. Therefore they were easily able to kawarimi with them. All of the jutsus involved were seal-less and soundless so everyone still in the original clearing was oblivious.

N1 and Naruto immediately concocted a few plans before blowing them full of holes and concocting a few more higher quality plans which they then put into action.

**.oOo.**

Meanwhile back with Kakashi and the replacement clones...

"You guys are a bit different than the others aren't you? A good ninja hides from his enemy and plans his enemy's downfall." Kakashi stated.

"We know that you know that Sasuke is right there," The clone had a finger pointed directly at the tree where Sasuke was currently grinding his teeth at being discovered, "and that Sakura is in those bushes," Again pointing directly where the person in question was. "So we figured we'd forgo the hiding and just start the fighting,"

The clones allowed some of the chakra that was augmenting their strength and speed to eek out of their muscles and into the pattern for shadow clones. They than shouted "bunshin no jutsu" so as to confuse the shit out of Kakashi.

Kakashi, with his Sharingan covered, had no idea how much chakra went into the jutsu and just assumed that they were normal run of the mill academy clones. So when the twenty total clones rushed at him and the closest one extended his leg for a hard kick to the skull he was extremely shocked when said kick connected and launched him ten meters to the side and skidding across the ground. Of course he wasn't a jounin for nothing and as soon as he realized the hit was solid he kawarimied with a large rock and let it bounce across the clearing in his place. The clones quickly spotted him again and renewed the attack.

These weren't modified clones of any sort though and were easily slaughtered once Kakashi realized what they were. He had earned his jounin vest after all. Kakashi was rather depressed that his students actually had a measure of talent. There was no file on N1 and Naruto's suggested that he was able to be disregarded entirely. Complete mastery over kage bunshin was something that Kakashi felt deserved to be regarded very thoroughly. It was inconsequential mostly but it made him quite sad to not be able to read his wonderful little book.

He had little time to deliberate on it as what he perceived to be the real deal was closing in fast. It was amazing how similar the two were. They ran the same way and one kicked high the other kicked low. In true ninja fashion Kakashi took the path of least resistance and kawarimied behind them.

"Ninja lesson number 1: Taijutsu," he intoned kicking each clone firmly in the back sending them sprawling forward. Amazingly enough they poofed into smoke to reveal... An oddly mutated bunny sitting on a couch watching TV while eating cake? With a mechanized spider creeping up behind it all?

Kakashi was so firmly shocked by the turn of events that he didn't notice when one clone grabbed the three bells and the kicked him in the back of the head. The clones then nodded to the bunny, spider, furniture, and cake all of which poofed to reveal two grinning Naruto clones and three smirking N1 clones. "Just thought we'd re-enact your brush with mechanized bunny-cake... Or something," The clone that had been the bunny explained.

Kakashi finally managed to shake off his stupor and in a lightning fast movement slammed a fist into the Naruto tank clone's chest and retrieved the bells and attached them to his belt again all in one movement.

"Good try there," He said with an eye-smile "but you have to keep the bells 'till the timer goes off,"

Unfortunately for him he didn't expect the bells to suddenly explode and he only barely escaped with all his limbs and was even singed a little when he reappeared where a fallen log had been. He let out an annoyed sigh and went off to try and retrieve the real bells as his weren't primed to explode.

The clones regrouped and discussed their success mentally. Each had been given a codename based on their role in the mission.

_"I can't believe he fell for the age old replace the bells with a solid henged explosive note trick," _Bunny-clone.

_"Bunny-clone... We just came up with that maneuver during a planning session yesterday." _Couch-clone.

"_Doesn't mean a seasoned jounin like him shouldn't have been able to avoid it," _Bunny-clone.

_"Seasoned you say? Mmm I'd eat him any day." _Spider-clone.

All the other clones thought at the same time, Why does there have to be a gay clone? It went hand in hand with the slight personality changes thing though. During their training Naruto and N1 had noticed that certain personalities seemed to turn up in every batch of clones. One was the gay clone. Another was a very gruff and brief clone who was also very obedient. The last one they had noticed was a foul-mouthed clone. Every third word with it was either a swear or a dirty joke.

Like usual, though, they ignored his random gay-perverseness.

_"He did avoid it though! That's why he's not dead!" _Couch-clone.

Suddenly their conversation was ended as Kakashi dropped right in the middle of the loose circle they had been in. He seemed very irked and yelled, "Ninja lesson number 2 Ninjutsu!" before breathing a thin stream of fire in a circle around himself disrupting and dispersing all except the tank clones. These tank clones were a special brand devised on the second day of what they had dubbed _The Great Training Session _complete with audible capitalization and italicization.

Anyway the chakra required was off the charts. 10,000 CC's went into making sure that the clones body was strong enough to hold all the chakra that would be put into it without exploding like Naruto had feared the living clone might. Than a further 25,000 CC's was actually given to the clones to use. Basically the clone was so sturdy that the only thing separating it from a living clone was the fact that it had no chakra coil system and would eventually disperse due to lack of chakra. Not much was needed to survive though and if the clone was created but not used for battle it could last a couple of months. Their primary use was permanent stand-ins as they were acting right now. The clone(s) would fight the enemy(s) while the real one would be off to the side somewhere observing the enemy's strengths and weaknesses or setting up a trap. Than once the clone was dispelled that was the real ones cue to rejoin the fight.

Anyway the current active tank clones were fighting a losing battle with the annoyed jounin. As strong as they had become during _The Great Training Session _Kakashi had been doing less intensive training over a much longer period of time and was better than them by far. Kakashi had stolen, so far, eight sets of bells and the solid henge and explosive notes required for making them were starting to take their toll on the supply that the tanks had. Well it was until they realized they could kunai kage bunshin more explosive notes.

After that realization the clones disappeared for a moment. Shocking the jounin. A minute later they reappeared with belts full of bell sets. Each clone had somewhere around thirty sets of three bells.

Kakashi was sure each one would explode if he tried to take it. He still wasn't sure how they had managed to manufacture exploding bells.

Suddenly the clones stiffened and sighed. They unclipped the entire set of bells from around their waists and tossed it at the jounin before poofing. Right before they left the clone of Naruto said. "We're done the boss will be with you shortly,"

So distracted by their disappearance and his realizations that those monstrously strong, for a genin, people had been clones that he didn't notice the primed to explode bells at his feet until it was almost to late. A second slower with the kawarimi and he'd be toast. Well badly cooked toast. More like blackened bread really.

He had finally regained his bearings when he felt a chakra disturbance by his waist. Prepared to kawarimi again if it was anything hostile he recognized the pattern as a kawarimi and looked down to find that the crazy pair of genin had returned the bells!

**.oOo.**

With Sasuke,

He was incensed that the dead-last of the academy had detected him when his underdeveloped chakra senses alerted him to some kind of jutsu being used right behind him. He turned just in time to see a flash of neon blond hair before he was knocked out by a chop to the neck.

'Man_' _The basic tank clone thought to himself 'Until I read that scroll on basic pressure points I never would have believed that chop thing actually worked!'

He picked the self proclaimed 'avenger' up and carried him piggy back to the clearing where an equally unconscious Sakura was waiting. Sakura had put up even less resistance. Apparently her chakra senses weren't developed at all. She hadn't even noticed when he kawarimied with a squirrel that had been lounging behind her in the bushes and chopped her on the neck.

The bosses plan to force teamwork on these guys is going well! Finally after sitting there for five minutes the clone brought out some normal smelling salts and awoke the two by force. Even unconscious they had seemed to have a bit of fight in them so he had tied them up with some rope he had used a solid henge to make for himself.

When he finally came to completely he in a surprising bout of rationality looked around and took stock of the situation before getting mad at Naruto. It didn't help much. Unless it was Kakashi henged to look like Naruto it was very obvious that his current predicament was Naruto's fault. So he spoke up,

"Give me one reason why I shouldn't beat the crap out of you when I get out of this."

He was surprisingly calm about this. Sakura would just scream until Kakashi showed up. So his plan was to convince Sasuke that no matter how well he did he wouldn't pass if they didn't work together.

"I'll do better. I'll give you a reason why you should _thank me_ for tying you up,"

"And why would I do that?" He was still surprisingly calm.

"Alright Sasuke, I'm going to explain the purpose of this test to you,"

He interrupted rudely, "The purpose of the test is to get the bells retard. You kidnapping me does nothing to help me get the bells,"

__"Ah, but Sasuke. You only _**think **__t_hat the bells are the purpose. Think. You should know from the academy that teams are constructed based either on teamwork benefits of the members or because the members have bloodlines or specializations that go well together. Like team eight is all tracking. Kakashi's test would get rid of one or more members. Let's say only you are able to get a bell. Have you ever seen a one man team? Now that we've determined that the bells are not the real goal what could the real goal be? Now let's think a little, what is Konoha's founding principle? Teamwork. It's a basic academy answer to an easy question. But you say, how could it be teamwork? This situation actively discourages teamwork! Then you realize, That's the whole point. From all that we are able to learn that to pass this test all we have to do is work together. We don't even have to get the bells. Which I know for a fact Naruto already has,"

Sasuke deliberated on this for a moment and in a surprising moment of cooperation agreed to the plan. It was obviously grudging but you could tell he respected Naruto's logic and reasoning and knew it was the only way. It was lucky for the clone that Sasuke hadn't registered his last sentence.

"Well than what's the plan?" Sasuke knew at that point he wasn't the leader, but he would be after this stupid test. Until than he'd let the dead-last and his weird friend call the shots.

"Well the boss and the guy who's name I won't tell you are keeping Kakashi busy and he'll be indisposed for at least another fifteen minutes. That gives us another hour of test which is more than enough to showcase some teamwork. Use those fifteen minutes to convince Sakura to join in on our plan. Shouldn't be hard. She'd fuck the ground you walk on,"

It was obvious at this point to all those in the loop which clone Sasuke was talking to.

Sasuke made his usual non-committal grunting noise and woke the girl up. Naruto got out of sight so he wouldn't be caught in the crossfire. Sasuke had no trouble convincing her. Her only thought on the matter was that if Sasuke was agreeing to it it must be a good plan.

Naruto explained the plan to them. It was a simple plan. The four of them would engage in a basic taijutsu fight with Kakashi and then Naruto would steal back the fake ones he'd planted before which was just a henged rock. He left that part out as they would surely question him on the use of a solid henge. Naruto would than pull out the real bells and explain to Kakashi that they had figured out the test. It was straightforward and didn't require anything special. Now they just had to wait for the real Naruto and his clones to finish with Kakashi.

**.oOo.**

He had been shocked to find he had the bells back and even more shocked when they hadn't exploded. He had found that was the least of his problems as a group of twenty clones dropped from the trees and began throwing kunai at his feet and shins. He dodged back a few feet but each of the twenty kunai just turned into twenty more clones and threw more kunai. The original twenty just smirked at him and dispersed. The process repeated itself a few more times before the twenty clones suddenly stopped and all but one disappeared. It spoke up,

"You are within the field of my divination," It intoned before sliding into the traditional Hyuuga stance as his eyes turned white.

Kakashi was so surprised that he didn't realized he was standing on a basic activation seal array.

Naruto slid out of the stance and laughed as his eyes turned back.

"Just kidding, your just standing on a seal,"

In traditional comedic fashion Kakashi looked down and then back up with a surprised expression as veritable kunai 'cannons' activated on the trees. All they were was more advanced versions of the water balloon seal from the prank. They were storage seals with ten kunai in them except they had a homing seal built in that excluded Naruto and N1. They also had a momentum seal. So basically the seal knew where the enemy was and fired a kunai at that spot. They were in a clearing with about fifty trees surrounding it. Each tree had one of these seals with ten kunai stored within. They had all activated simultaneously. The air was suddenly thick with kunai and Kakashi had a horrible feeling that he might not be able to avoid this one. That thought was cemented when the clone declared in a voice thick with laughter, "Kunai kage bunshin no jutsu!"

The replacement technique better known as the kawarimi has a few known drawbacks. The object had to be movable to replace with it. Also you had to have line of sight. If you couldn't see it you couldn't switch with it. That was the problem Kakashi was now facing. Of course he then remembered why his reputation was that of the copycat and not the pincushion. The reason was he could get out of this stuff. He had told himself he wouldn't use any advanced jutsu but he felt the need to now. He made a few seals and breathed out a monstrous cloud of water which than swirled around him stopping any of the kunai.

He waited out the seals and eventually they ran out of kunai and he let the water, as well as roughly ten kunai fell to the ground. Apparently most had been kunai kage bunshins. He than gave Naruto a look as if to say, 'well I stopped that did you manage to set up more?'

Naruto just grinned as for the second time in so many days Kakashi fell through the floor. The hole trap had had a tarp over it to prevent line of sight required to just kawarimi right out plus it was chakra-retarding and prevented most jutsu from going past it. So if the fire was chakra induced it wouldn't burn the tarp. It also blocked body-flicker better known as shunshin.

Still a hole could only be dug so deep and Kakashi managed to just climb right out as a ninja of his rank could be expected to.

When he had gotten out he found that the clone or the real thing or whatever that last Naruto was had disappeared so he made his way back to the clearing that had his clock to await any further attacks on his dignity or on his person and hopefully get some reading in. Cue perverted giggle.

And of course a split second before he could open his pervy little book he saw out of the corner of his eye a high kick coming in. He tried to turn and block it but it went through his hand and through his head. It had been a normal bunshin. First one of those he'd seen all day. For once it wasn't Naruto or that annoying nameless twin but Sasuke and Sakura. For a second he had thought that it had been them who had figured out the true meaning of his test, but as reliable as D-rank missions Naruto and that bastard twin were just behind them with a troupe of clones that he knew were far more dangerous than the fare that Sasuke had just been utilizing.

The fight after that was long slightly brutal but fairly nondescript and at the end Naruto finally enacted the plan. The bells on Kakashi's belt poofed suddenly as the clone that had been henged into them dispersed himself. That was Sasuke, N1 and Sakura's signal and immediately the whole fight stopped. Kakashi blinked and looked to Naruto who grinned and pointed at the real bells he had pulled out of his pocket.

"Until now none have you have seen the real me or the real nameless ninja. The entire fight has been played out by my various clones,"

Everyone felt sort of outclassed. Well except Kakashi, if he had permission to use lethal force the fight would've been considerably shorter, but Naruto liked to think even he felt outclassed since Naruto wasn't allowed lethal force either. He supposed he probably tried a good bit harder though out of some misguided attempt to impress the man, and there was the fact that it was two on one to take into consideration.

"Oh and me and the nameless ninja here were the ones who figured out your sham of a test, I mean honestly how many shinobi do you get who figure this crap out?"

Kakashi coughed loudly, "Out of the ten teams I've trained... None."

Naruto snorted, "We better have passed then," both Sakura and Sasuke agreed in the background.

Kakashi coughed again, "Yeah you did,"

It was so anticlimactic that there was no cheering involved. Suddenly an eighteen foot tall mutant bunny mounted on eight mechanical legs suddenly charged out of the woods reaching down and picking up Kakashi before roaring demoniacally and poofing away into nothing. Everyone immediately turned to Naruto.

"What? Don't look at me like that! He deserved it!"

A large slice of cake also fell next to Kakashi. Naruto deadpanned, "Also, there was cake," Everyone sweatdropped.

**AN: I greatly apologize for that last scene... I must have been on acid or something. Also I need your guys's opinion on something. Should I do the wave country arc? I don't really have ideas for that so progress would be slower than usual. Then again I have no idea what I could do for an original mission either so progress would be even slower XD. Anyway I might set up a poll so look at my profile if you have the chance. Also I haven't advertised for it on this fic but I have a challenge up in my profile. I would really appreciate someone taking it up. It is for a time loop scenario in either the Naruto or HP worlds. Thanks! Read and review as always...**


	6. REWRITE POSTED!

**(I'm leaving the below note for posterity, but I wanted to make sure there was a way for everyone who had Split on alert to know that the rewrite has taken off, after many years since the last update of true Split content! I apologize for that, but here it is!)**

AN: Alright, time for another sad update. I think it's completely obvious I haven't been working on Split in the last few years and that it is most likely abandoned, but I truly hesitate to use that word with this one. While the current incarnation of Split is 100% not going to be updated, I actually feel I might rewrite this one. I want to do a more thorough job of building the world and deciding definitively how things work, but I may actually do it. This one is the most well plotted of all my stories, I can actually see a way in which I could move forward and make a good story.

I have to say though, rereading Split to decide what I plan to do with it as an author, that the biggest reason I hesitate to simply bull through all the qualms I have with my own story is simply the quality shock that would be there. I've become a lot more proficient as a writer, identifying my mistakes in English usage and in plot construction, and a new chapter of Split would just look WRONG next to the five previous chapters. It would likely have a more serious humor, if any, and a much more realistically powerful Naruto.

I also think that N1 was a terrible idea, because the only good reason not to make a bunch more living clones is because it would make the story ridiculous and boring. Now, objectively, Naruto's character doesn't see his life as a story and wouldn't do such a thing simply because it would make his new posse 'too strong'. He would, of course, see that as a tremendous advantage. So, as an author, what I should have done is made that clone explode, and toned down the consequences. A twenty megaton explosion would have shortened the story considerably, for obvious reasons.

But that's enough negative blather about why everything was terrible and DIDN'T work. I want to talk about a potential future project. I mentioned it in the Abandonment Notice for another fic of mine, but it would be unsurprising if all of my readers here didn't follow it, as it is a Harry Potter fic.

Anyway, it is to be a story about a cold and calculating, yet deeply charismatic Nara Shikaku and an emotionally abused, young Naruto. When Naruto subverts the Kyubi's chakra to heal an injured doe, Shikaku teaches him the techniques and culture of the Nara for his own gain, transparently citing the payback of a debt, but in reality hoping to bind whatever dormant power of the fox exists to the Nara clan.

Leave a review telling me what you'd rather see, and I'll absolutely take reader opinion into consideration. I will, of course, write what comes naturally to, but if no one wants to hear about a Naratized Naruto, then I will make every effort to delve back into my Split story files.


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